We have two servers running Ubuntu for web and Mysql databases. Just loaded a laptop with it a couple of weeks ago and up to this point I have been pleased. Not found anything I have been unable to do because I was running Ubuntu. Now figuring out a few things took some time by reading and feeling my way through them. But no complaints from me and its feels good to know I'm not stuffing MS pockets.

We are a huge VMware shop, I don't feel you could go wrong using it to run both. Being able to snapshot and role back if you screw something up is very nice.

I have been running Ubuntu on my workstation for the past 5 years. I love it. Nothing I can't do with it. I don't play video games and if there is something that absolutely requires Windows I have an instance of XP and Win7 installed in virtualbox. Whenever I have to use Windows now it just feels old.

I have been running Ubuntu on my workstation for the past 5 years. I love it. Nothing I can't do with it. I don't play video games and if there is something that absolutely requires Windows I have an instance of XP and Win7 installed in virtualbox. Whenever I have to use Windows now it just feels old.

Here is what you're missing:

That's a slick desktop setup. Might have to play around with that sooner than later.

I haven't played with linux for a couple of years but I've always found that it's 95% of what I need, but that the last 5% requires deep command line understanding of linux which I don't have and I get frustrated. It gets better and better, but there is still quite a bit of contempt out there for casual linux users who never want to go to a terminal window.

While not quite as graphically slick I've been much happier running OSX.

Thank you for the feedback guys - this is really helpful. I think I am going to go the VMware route as I have never done that before. This is more of a project/entertainment for me as I don't really use this server anymore. I want to play around with some opensource tools.

I run Ubuntu in VirtualBox on my Win7 desktop. I use it from time to time for mundane daily tasks or tinkering with. I'm not a linux guy but I try to familiarize myself with it for certain things. I've done some projects (personal) using Ubuntu to run MySQL DB and a web front end. At work it's pretty much a MS shop so I work almost entirely with Windows based systems.